LIMINAL - A Video Essay On Liminal Space

[Music] i often find myself more interested in and connected to spaces than people rather than the subject i find the context far more interesting spaces are the settings of our memories our dreams our lives through the places we've been and the places we'll go [Music] liminal space is the space in between if everyday reality is the show on stage liminal space is behind the red curtain [Music] we keep memories of liminal space stowed away in the recesses of our minds only resurfacing under unusual circumstances and with them they bring a deeply uncanny feeling of a lonely nostalgic deja vu [Music] an unrivaled vacancy felt only in our dreams sending us back to times long past [Music] [Music] a school after hours an empty highway a playground at night these are places from our past the settings of our memories deeply uncanny yet not completely familiar innocent enough when you're there in person albeit unusual but completely different when captured through a lens [Music] a surge in interest in the emotional phenomenon that is liminal space has swept across the internet it's seen in videos forums short stories even video games and films liminal space has found a home on the internet and with it its signature look and feel has become iconic [Music] liminal space is an abstract concept making it complicated for me to simply define in anthropology the word liminality is used to describe the disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage marking a person's transition from one point in their life to another liminality derives from the latin word lyman meaning threshold but these tedious definitions don't do liminal space justice there are four artists i found that illustrate elements of luminal space in their own ways not through words but through photographs brush strokes and colors the first is photographer todd hedo in his body of work homes at night keto shows us american suburbs after dark instead of photographs focused on people hiro turned his camera to the empty spaces that implied human presence that felt lived in like empty cars and unmade beds the painter edward hopper captured a similar ambiance but instead through his brush he portrays an immense sense of isolation on his subjects through the sheer amount of space surrounding them whether urban or rural hopper's subjects have a veil of solitude and impermanence cast over them as they are encompassed by an immense canvas illustrating their surroundings more than them in his most famous piece nighthawks hopper paints not only a diner scene with customers around a counter but surrounding it a massive void of negative space nighthawks does not frame to focus on the people but instead the dark city that looms just outside their window another artist john register is often compared to hopper because of their work similar tones and style but by removing subjects altogether along with his iconic use of light and negative space register almost invites us to take part in the paintings to fill the void that other subjects have left behind as register said himself with hopper you witness someone else's isolation in my pictures i think you the viewer become the isolated one finally although doho says work vastly differs from our last three artists as he works mainly in sculpture and installation he is just as relevant to the conversation of liminal space through fabric paper and metal saw meticulously reconstructs the transitional spaces in his life like doors hallways and staircases he says he's more interested in transitional spaces than destinations because life is a passageway we experience life through a series of spaces in his piece staircase three saw creates a fabric replica of a staircase that connected him and his close friend in the building where they lived so's work serves as a gentle remembrance of the spaces that are important to him when combined hedos hoppers registers and sus work help us get a better sense of what liminal space truly is a transitional space that implies the presence of people and pushes a strong sense of isolation onto the viewer their work combined aptly illustrates the feeling rather than the definition of liminal space when we look at the liminal space photo compilations online we can immediately see some patterns unusual lighting use of negative space lack of people haphazard framing these photos are as atmospheric as they are well amateur to any professional photographer that isn't to say that these photographs are unintentionally captivating they utilize the iconic aspects of liminal photography that have grown out of an amateur movement what was once a grainy photo re-downloaded online so many times it became virtually unrecognizable is now an art form leading into other areas of the art world artist hito style in her article in defense of the poor image defines a poor image as an image with low resolution an image that is equally accessible as it is low in quality it is the ghost of an image a preview a thumbnail an errant idea an itinerant image distributed for free squeezed through slow digital connections compressed reproduced ripped remixed as well as copied and pasted into other channels of distribution in the process of an image losing its quality it creates global networks just as it creates a shared history by losing its visual substance it recovers some of its political punch and creates a new aura around it as the quality of the image thins when passed from person to person it only grows richer in meaning and context i imagine that in five years or so the photos of liminal space that are so popular online will have digitally aged noticeable when looked at like a sculpture would wear or metal would rust as an artist and photographer one of my biggest influences is david lynch he is often credited as the master of making the usual unusual you can see this in his works like twin peaks and blue velvet the term lynchian coined by david foster wallace refers to a particular kind of irony where the very mccarb and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter in many ways this is what liminal space photography aims to do make mundane and average spaces into liminal space by the way they're captured with the camera [Music] since my earliest work as a photographer i've always had an affinity for capturing spaces whether i was deep in nature or exploring a city i'd always choose the back roads the roads less traveled i find places with personality i snap pictures of them and marvel in the stories they tell so when i watched youtuber solar sans video on liminal space i was immediately hooked i had a gut feeling this was something i wanted to seriously follow i was halfway through my senior semester of college when i made the decision to switch my thesis project and artistic focus fully to liminal space without thinking too much i thought of a few places near me that i could shoot to at least get a feel for liminal photography what i didn't expect was the intense emotional experience i was about to have it turns out physically being in a liminal space is kind of intense not only was it extremely solitary but it was more than a little creepy at times it was a cold and windy night with not a soul around in the rural pennsylvanian town that i chose to shoot in i left that first shoot with both excitement and fearful chills rather than my crisp and clear camera that i use for most of my professional work i chose to use the first camera i ever bought it's small entry level and definitely doesn't shoot the sharpest photos since i did want to be able to make a legitimate photo series i knew i needed to find a middle ground between the grainy and compressed photos you see online and the massively high resolution photos you'd find in an art gallery this camera was that middle ground i was pleasantly surprised by the eerie and unique way it captured light lending itself perfectly for liminal space it gained a bit of a reputation and with it the nickname the liminal space inator that first shoot acted as a proof of concept since it went so well it filled me with a sense of validation that i made the right choice to follow liminal space it also had me counting the minutes until i could go out and shoot again i knew i needed something big to make this photo series stand out to give it an edge and have it build to something greater than me at the time i was planning a trip to pittsburgh pa for an unrelated vacation but coincidentally pittsburgh has some of the most famous dead malls in the country dead malls are a classic setting for liminal space as many of them were built in the 80s and 90s and are mostly if not completely abandoned they carry a heavy nostalgic energy while having little to no people they were exactly what i was looking for [Music] the weeks leading up to the trip were nerve-wracking there was a lot riding on it when we finally did arrive it was a bit overwhelming like we were about to start an uphill battle with so many moving parts i worried that the trip would fall apart i was scared the malls wouldn't be what i envisioned or even accessible at all some of them were completely abandoned and boarded up having closed only months before we went [Music] other malls were open but without permission to film mall security became another issue and uh we were kicked out of a couple we'll go sorry but what i was most worried about was my own ability to be able to adapt to every given situation good or bad and most importantly still shoot photos that i'd be proud of i was ready for four stressful days full of failure i expected the worst but when i was there camera in hand everything just fell into place [Music] [Applause] [Music] as i reflect on my experience i'm reminded of a quote from edward hopper great art is the outward expression of an inner life of the artist and this inner life will result in their personal vision of the world i think liminal space's true purpose is to view the past not with a passionate longing nor a regretful scorn but instead with a gentle remembrance of where we came from i think that through liminal space we can further reflect and understand ourselves in a way we haven't before it's a lens into our past but the underbelly of what we remember visceral and evocative a beautiful but dark perspective of our memories liminal space is between what was and what's next it's where all transformation takes place if we learn to wait and let it form us [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: dan

Views: 29,976

Rating: 4.9612794 out of 5

Keywords: liminal space, liminal, liminal spaces, documentary, video essay, creative, art, video, photography, educational, Edward Hopper, do ho Suh, weird, horror, creepypasta, hito steyerl, Todd Hido, solar sands, liminal photography, liminal reality, liminality, unusual places, obscura, atlas obscura, strangely familiar, strangely familiar places, unnerving music, strangely familiar places with unnerving music, places you've seen in your dreams, unusual photos, liminal art, transitional space

Id: cQWdtZbj2Zg

Length: 16min 54sec (1014 seconds)

Published: Fri May 14 2021